


Rootless

by Sandrine Shaw (Sandrine)



Category: Pawns and Symbols - Majliss Larson, Star Trek - Various Authors
Genre: Antagonistic Relationship, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, F/M, Klingon, POV Antagonist, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-17
Updated: 2014-04-17
Packaged: 2018-01-19 18:57:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1480483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sandrine/pseuds/Sandrine%20Shaw
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You can never go home again. All you can do is make your own home, somewhere new.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rootless

I.

He fully expects Kang to kill him after they'd retrieved the human from the I.S.G.. When Kang doesn't, but at the same time makes it quite clear that to spare Tirax wasn't his choice, the Commander's crushing disappointment shames Tirax in a way he hadn't factored in. Just because Kang's unfortunate fondness for Czerny is a weakness in Tirax's eyes, it doesn't mean he won't still value Kang as his leader or seek approval that he has now clearly gambled away by taking revenge on the human.

When there's news of civil war raging on Tsorn, he's almost glad of it, happy to turn his back on everything he's known and worked for during those past two decades and return to the home he left behind. He refuses to think of it as running away. Klingon warriors don't run away. They barely even acknowledge strategic retreat as an option, so that's not what this is. He's merely going to a place he's needed.

Tsorn is everything he remembers it to be. 

It's harsh, barren landscapes that are as familiar to him as his own body. It's angry, violent people hardened by poverty and the daily struggle to survive. It's his sister's quietly smoldering anger and reproachful attitude over her brothers leaving her to fend for herself and take care of their dead parents' land on her own while they go off having adventures in space. Tarin's words, not his, from all those years ago when Khalex and he left, and even though back then their sister's fury seemed selfish and unfair, he understands now why she felt that way – and probably still does.

The moment he sets foot on Tsorni soil, he can't shake the sense of provenance. Yet at the same time he remembers why exactly he wanted to leave this place behind; feels it down to his bones, the crushing weight on his shoulders, the sense of being cornered and tied down. Just because something is familiar doesn't mean it's good, and home is not a concept he has ever associated with comfort.

He crops his hair short as is the custom on Tsorn, in a way that men from the center of the Empire frown upon. He takes up his weapons and fights against people he used to know when he was a boy and who don't remember him now. 

Civil war is said to be uglier than any other sort of war, fighting and killing your own people, but they're not _his people_ exactly, and while he would undoubtedly prefer cutting the throat of some Romulan or Federation scum, it doesn't really matter. They all bleed and die the same, no matter the color of their blood.

He fights on the streets with blades and blasters, fights at home with Tarin with harsh words that cut deeper than daggers. She's fierce and angry and proud, and when she pushes him too far and he raises a hand against her, she doesn't cower but steps closer and dares him to hit her. His hand clenches and sinks down as if pulled by gravity, leaving him to make a hasty, graceless exit. He loves his sister, even when he hates her. Even when she hates him.

The riots get harsher and more brutal every month, and no one really knows what the insurgents are fighting for. It's about land and the meager corn people own (oh, the irony! Tirax can't help sparing a thought for Kang's human and her precious grain and wonders where the hell that blasted woman is when his people here clearly need what she has to offer), but mostly it's about anger and frustration pent-up over the years and decades. He watches more people die than he can count before someone, miraculously, strikes a chord with both opposing factions and violence gradually gives way to tense peace negotiations.

After observing them for a while, always waiting for the fights to start up again, he feels the restlessness building under his skin like a constant low energy buzz of the _agonizer_. It doesn't surprise him. He's always been terrible with negotiations, always wanting everything at once, and he's never been particularly good at peace either.

He's trying. He shakes hands with people he'd much rather stab in the chest, he attends tense meetings that feel to him more like stalling than progress, he shares meals with his sister and they engage in awkward, stilted conversation. 

He tries until he's done trying. Until he acknowledges that he'd rather face Kang's disappointment than one more day of this, and the decision takes a weight off his shoulders he hadn't realized he was carrying.

"You're leaving," Tarin says, more statement than question. He looks for accusation in her voice, but her tone is neutral.

Still, he feels the need to apologize, even though he can't bring himself to lie and say _I'm sorry_. "I can't stay. This place—"

"I know." She nods, and reaches out to touch his face with more gentleness than she showed him since they were children. "You have to find your own way. Take care of yourself out there, brother."

She kisses his cheek and it feels like forgiveness. It feels like the permission to go that, all those years ago, she refused him and he pretended he never needed.

 

II.

Asking Kang for his old position back isn't as humiliating as Tirax expected it to be, because Kang doesn't make it so. There's a part of Tirax that resents the Commander's unexpected display of leniency, but he fights it down and bites out a "thank you, Milord" that is, for the most part, genuine.

Kang shrugs as if it was nothing, but his stare is hard and piercing. "You are a valuable member of my crew, Lieutenant. And I trust you have learned your lesson not to defy my orders."

Has he? Tirax isn't sure what kind of lesson he has or hasn't learned, but it doesn't matter because the human isn't on board the _Klolode II_ anymore. He doesn't ask what happened to her, whether Kang sent her to another planet or whether she died or finally went home. It's all the same to him. 

 

III.

They make a stop on Sherman's Planet to drop off supplies and a dozen new guardsmen. 

It's more than five years since Tirax last set foot on the planet. Down there, they still haven't rebuilt everything that was destroyed in the earthquake, at least not in the Klingon settlements. Whole buildings still lie in ruins, and he remembers stepping through the debris and rubble, stepping over dead body after dead body as if it had been yesterday.

Tirax oversees the delivery, trying to keep his contact with the scientists, who keep puttering about and making outrageous demands as if the crew of the _Klolode II_ were here to serve them, to a minimum. There's an unfortunate run-in with Aernath, who looks as surprised to see Tirax here as Tirax is to see him. Truth be told, he hadn't spent a lot of time contemplating Aernath's fate, assuming that he either left with the human or tested Kang's patience to a point where the Commander finally had him killed.

He never particularly liked Aernath, never had any patience for the sort of men who channel their anger into sullenness rather than aggression. Aernath's conduct has always been a source of irritation, both before the human had invoked _bond rights_ on him and certainly after, when he followed at her heel like a tame dog.

From the way Aernath is eyeing him, it's easy to tell that the antipathy is mutual. When he asks Tirax whether he intends to stay on Sherman's Planet, clearly hoping that the answer is going to be no, Tirax feels a dark kind of amusement. 

"Perhaps they made me your new commander," he suggests, grinning sharply at the crumble of Aernath's expression. "Fortunately for you, they didn't. I'm here with Kang. We're making some deliveries and picking up a few things along the way."

These words should have comforted Aernath, but instead he blanches even more, making a hasty exit that Tirax doesn't understand until later, when he goes looking for Kang and overhears a conversation that isn't meant for his ears. He doesn't mean to eavesdrop, but as he approaches, the gravity in Kang's voice makes him stop.

"You cannot come and go as you please. It was your choice to return to the Federation, now you're asking me to take you back," the Commander is saying, and Tirax realizes at once who it is Kang is talking to.

"That's not what I'm—" the human begins, hotly, before she reins herself in. "Please, Kang, I'm begging you. Let me come back. I can't do this anymore. When I left, I wanted to go home, but this isn't— It's not what I thought it would be. Or maybe I'm not who I was. I don't know. I don't belong here, not anymore." 

There's ugly, pitiful desperation in her voice, and yet Tirax feels an unexpected surge of... not quite sympathy, but perhaps kinship. What she's saying evokes memories of Tsorn, a home and yet not, and it's not hard to understand how it must have panned out for her, returning to the Federation a stranger, too changed by her time and experiences in the Empire to fit in anymore.

"You'll never belong with us either, you have to know that," Kang warns her.

Tirax is standing hidden behind a wall; he can't see her expression, but it's easy to picture the stubborn set of her jaw when she says, "I know. But I'd rather feel like a trespasser in the Klingon Empire than like a stranger amongst my own people."

Kang doesn't speak for a long moment. Then he says, "All right. But know that you can't leave again. If you turn your back on the Federation, this time there's no coming back."

Tirax slips away quietly, deciding this isn't the time to bother the Commander. He doesn't need to hear any more of their conversation; he knows what choice the human will make.

 

IV.

Czerny returns with Kang from Sherman's Planet. Aernath doesn't. Neither fact particularly surprises Tirax.

Back on the _Klolode II_ , Czerny settles in like she never left. It's mostly the same crew that manned the ship when Kang first took her from Sherman's Planet, and they're so used to her presence that they don't bat an eye at a human among their midst.

Tirax watches her, and realizes that she's different. She walks the hallways with sure strides, she wears the Klingon uniform like she's never worn anything else, she pins her hair up like a Klingon woman and almost looks like she's one of them. She seems comfortable in a way she never used to be – the difference between being a prisoner forced to live on enemy ground and refugee seeking exile in a familiar place.

He remembers her bloody and bruised and broken in the ruins of K-7 after the earthquake, when he'd been the first one to arrive at the scene of destruction and initially thought her dead. He remembers her fearful and angry after Kang forced her to stay with them, the way she seemed painfully out of place and unable or unwilling to adapt on Klairos, and he finds it odd to reconcile those memories with the woman he sees joking with the other scientists or sharing a meal with Eknaar or occasionally Mara in the mess hall.

He keeps his distance, for more reasons than one. 

He knows Kang is keeping a watchful eye on him and won't suspend Tirax's punishment once again should he step out of line. But even if it wasn't for Kang's protection, Tirax finds that he has little interest in tangling with the human again. He's had as much revenge as he could take without killing her, watching her suffer at his brother's hand and getting to observe her slow, painful recovery afterwards. Whatever churning hatred he used to feel burnt itself out. He still begrudges her the way she continues to enjoy Kang's favor, but he doesn't feel the need to take a dagger to her throat.

He doesn't interact with her unless it can't be avoided, doesn't speak to her unless he has to, and when he does, he's brief and dispassionate and professional. Kang seems pleased enough with him. The human, oddly enough, less so. One would think that she'd enjoy the reprieve, the fact that no one is out to harm her, but curiously, the more placid and indifferent he acts around her, the snappier she gets.

And perhaps Tirax isn't quite as done with revenge as he thought he was, because even if he doesn't understand her reaction, he can't help but enjoy that he can still get a rise out of her without having to do anything but display clinical nonchalance towards her. 

It doesn't escape Kang's notice, of course, as nothing does, and when the Commander starts watching their interaction with an unreadable, speculative look on his face, Tirax thinks it would be deeply ironic if he was to end up getting himself killed for being pleasant and non-confrontational.

 

V.

Kang is a trickster, of course. Even if Tirax had forgotten that – and he hadn't – it wouldn't have taken long for him to be reminded. 

They're having a long and boring officer's meeting about the value of grain and the human's latest strain of _quadrotriticale_ and where to best run a trial cultivation. 

Tirax hasn't been following the discussion closely. He's a warrior, not a farmer; his job is to keep the crew safe, and he'll gladly leave the sciencey stuff to the scientists. He only zones back in when Kang turns around and addresses him, a mischievous look on his face, and Tirax has less than a split second for the unsettling feeling to hit him in the stomach before Kang says, "What do you think, Lieutenant? How would the good people of Tsorn like Czerny?"

He keeps his voice passive, shrugging. "They'd tear her apart."

"They're welcome to try," the human snaps, and he's not sure if her ire is directed at him for suggesting what he knows is the truth or at the people on Tsorn for their probable reaction to her presence.

Her attitude grates on his nerves, but with Kang observing him like a _waqbogh_ , waiting for him to slip up, he doesn't dare let it show. He tries to be as rational as possible when he explains, "People on Tsorn don't like… outsiders. Strangers coming to their planet and telling them what to do." As an afterthought, he adds, "Even when they mean well."

Czerny looks startled at his last comment, as if she didn't expect him to acknowledge that her work is valuable to the starving people of the Empire. Kang nods gravely, like Tirax's words only confirm what he already knew. 

"Which is why I think it's for the best if you'll accompany her on her mission, make sure that it's safe," he says, a smile on his lips.

Tirax knows it's a test, so he doesn't bother to protest. Doesn't bother to mention that he's barely less of an outsider on Tsorn than the human – perhaps even more so, because it used to be his home that he turned his back on, twice. His kinsmen are unlikely to look kindly on that, as he's quite sure Kang is aware.

Perhaps during her time away Czerny has forgotten how stubborn Kang can be, how much he delights in putting people in difficult, uncomfortable situations just to see how they'll cope, because she starts arguing. Kang shoots her protests down without hearing her out.

When the Commander has left the room, she turns to Tirax in disbelief. "Why didn't you say something? It's obvious that you can barely stand having me around here. Do you honestly want to be stranded planetside with me for months?"

Under other circumstances, her distress would amuse him, but she's not the only one Kang is playing tricks on. He stops trying to hide his frustration. "Haven't you learned by now that arguing with Kang is pointless, human? If he wants me playing bodyguard to you on Tsorn, than that's what's going to happen, and no amount of arguing you or I will do is going to change it. Even if it ends with a mob of angry villagers slitting both our throats in our sleep while we're down there."

Czerny frowns. "Why would they harm you? I thought they were your people. You just said they only hated outsiders."

Tirax's smile is without humor. "That's precisely what I am to them. With any luck, human, they're going to hate me more than you."

"That's comforting," she scoffs.

 

VI.

Tarin takes an instant liking to Czerny. It shouldn't have surprised Tirax as much as it does. Observing them together, engrossed in conversation and sharing easy smiles, it's plain to see how similar the two women are – both too smart and proud and stubborn for their own good.

He knows better than to try and sabotage their relationship. Neither his sister nor the human would stand for it, and after observing their budding friendship with unease for a while, Tirax realizes that it's not without its advantages. Even though Tarin's skills of diplomacy are as poor as his or Czerny's and they're all rash and short-tempered and opinionated, his sister still manages to defuse their simmering antipathy with nothing but her presence. It's good to have some sort of buffer in his daily interactions with Czerny, someone they both respect enough to generally maintain a veneer of politeness or, if not politeness exactly, then at the very least neutrality.

"She's a good woman, your human," Tarin tells him, late one night when they're sharing a bottle of warm _bahgol_.

Her choice of words, which Tirax is sure is deliberate, makes him scowl. "She's not _my human_ ," he spits.

"Would you like her to be, though?"

He wants to get angry or laugh the question off, but his sister's tone displays genuine curiosity and just enough kindness that he knows she means well without putting him on the defensive. "She was Kang's Second-Consort and now she retains his _Theld-right_. She put a dagger in my shoulder. I arranged for her to be tortured by the I.S.G.." It's as brief a history of his and Czerny's past as he can give without missing anything crucial, except for how it misses _everything_ crucial, and he's perfectly aware of that.

Unfortunately, so is his sister.

She takes a sip of her _bahgol_ and smiles at him. "That's not an answer to my question, brother."

"What I'm telling you is that it doesn't matter what I want." His voice is flat and cool, and he glares at Tarin. Whatever she sees in his eyes must have forestalled any protest she might have had and any intention to dig further, because she merely nods and falls silent.

Later, when he's alone, he thinks about her words. Truth is, he isn't sure what his answer would be if it was up to him to give one. Back when he found her on Sherman's Planet after the earthquake, he wanted the human to be his, in the way every warrior is allowed to keep the spoils of war they collect. But Kang had been quick to claim her as his own, as was his right as the Commander of a battleship, and afterwards it was safer for Tirax to hate Czerny than to want her. Now Kang had set her free, but too much had happened for her to come to Tirax willingly, and Kang's protection is shielding her from being claimed by force.

 

VII.

His sister's friendship notwithstanding, having Czerny on Tsorn goes exactly as well as Tirax predicted it would. 

Czerny, with her unwillingness to duck her head and back down, is as ill-suited for the hostile, unwelcoming society on Tsorn as it gets, and on the rare days when she doesn't clash with any of the people on the compound or the workers on the farms, Tirax does.

He's only marginally less involved in fights than he was the last time he was here, and back then he was in the middle of a civil war. Now, it's all petty altercations over propriety, over local customs Czerny doesn't care to uphold, over careless words causing offense. It's a tiresome uphill battle every day, frustrating because so much of it is unnecessary and could be avoided with a little more restraint.

When he says as much to the human, she bristles. "I'm sorry if my doing my job inconveniences you," she snaps, like she doesn't understand that she's deliberately alienating the Tsorni people with her attitude. 

He curses under his breath. "By _Durgath_ , it's not your work that's the problem, it's you. How stupidly reckless you are and how you keep picking fights with people instead of keeping your mouth shut and doing what you're told."

"I'm doing what Kang tells me and precisely that," she says, before adding with an extra bit of snottiness, "I don't take orders from you, in case you'd forgotten."

The anger coils in his gut like a _kos'karii_ , vicious and hungry, and he wants to break her and take her and remind her of her place. She brings that out in him every so often, but this time, Kang isn't around to make him caution his reaction nor is his sister with them to cushion his rage. 

He slams Czerny back until she hits the rough brick wall of the compound HQ, forearm tight against her throat to hold her in place and threaten to cut off her air if she struggles. She does so anyway, because she's never known what's best for her, ineffectively kicking out at him without having the necessary space to put force behind the attack. Her eyes blaze furiously at him and she snarls like a cornered animal, a beautiful deadly predator, captured but not yet broken. 

He kisses her because he can. Because he has her in front of him, as defenseless as she'll ever be. Because he hasn't been able to stop thinking about this since his sister asked him whether he wanted Czerny to be his. The adrenaline pumping through his veins needs an outlet, and it's either this or something more violent and possibly lethal. 

Her mouth is still open from when she was spilling abuse and insults at him seconds ago, except now it's blissfully silent, all further protests or arguments stilled for now. It's barely even a kiss, more like a blow delivered with his mouth instead of his fists or a blade, and he doesn't dare to deepen it for fear of losing his tongue. When she pushes him away with both hands against his chest, he briefly thinks that it wasn't really worth the death Kang will mete out to him. 

She slaps him with the flat of her hand, and even though he should know by now that she's stronger than she looks, the force with which the blow rocks his head to the side surprises him. 

He takes a step back, letting his arm drop away from her, angry at himself for giving in to the impulse, angry at her for making him want more than he can have. 

Czerny stands staring at him, out of breath and furious and confused, and when she reaches for him, he expects another slap. Doesn't expect her hand fisting in his uniform top to pull him in, or her lips crashing against his in a kiss that's all teeth and anger and frustration, razor sharp like the bite of her dagger, cutting him open just as effectively. 

She's every bit as furious with him as he is with her. For once, it works out in both their favors.

 

VIII.

It's remarkable how little things change. 

Czerny still infuriates him like no other person, failing to understand that the things he does are meant to keep her safe and not done with the intention to spite her. Most of them, anyway. 

Every choice he makes, every order he gives – she fights him every step along the way, with sharp words and cutting insults and, in the privacy of her quarters, with long fingernails putting bloody scratches on his back and lips clashing so harshly against his that they leave bruises. She pushes him down and climbs on top of him and kisses him until she forgets what they've been fighting about, and then he flips them over and pushes into her, thankful for how easy human undergarments come off, enjoying the rare moments of having her pliant and relaxed beneath him. 

He does his job as best as he can, given how difficult she makes it to protect her. He steps between her and a fellow scientist she's arguing with in the labs. He tells an aggravated farmer who doesn't like taking orders from a human female to take a walk and do as he was told. He throws a punch at a boy who tries to rob her in the marketplace. 

Out on the fields, she's almost killed by one of the large grassland predators that jumps out from behind the treeline. Tirax puts it down with one precise shot before Czerny can as much as scream. If afterwards, she's a little more shaken than usual by the incident and a little less eager to question his constant presence, he's certainly not complaining.

There's one particularly nasty occasion when an officer pulls her away from the crowd at the _Feast of Que'sah_ , possessive hands roaming over her body, calling her a whore when she tries to push him away. Tirax sees red. He steps in and breaks the man's wrist, telling him if he as much as looks at Czerny again, he'll skin him alive.

"I could have handled him," Czerny says, after the assailant has scrambled away. Belatedly, and not without reluctance, she adds, "But thank you." 

His instinctive reaction to any show of grudging gratitude from her is to throw the old _better luck next time_ right back in her face, but on this particular occasion, he finds that the words won't come. 

Truth is, she's right – she would have been able to handle the man on her own, but seeing him with his hands all over Czerny made Tirax want to hurt him, so he did. It's nothing he cares to explain to her, though, so he shrugs it off. She doesn't say anything, but she doesn't venture far from his side for the rest of the night, as if sensing his possessiveness and, for once, not objecting to it.

 

IX.

Summer comes, uncomfortably hot and droughty. He's forgotten how much he hated Tsorn during the heatwave. 

In the daytime, it's hard to move without breaking into a sweat and being constantly weighted down by the glare of the twin suns, and the heat makes people more aggressive than they already are. It barely cools down at night. Jean sleeps stretched out next to him, nothing but a thin sheet covering her pale human skin. 

He resists the urge to touch. They have an early morning out on the fields and she needs what little rest she gets. It's more considerate than he would have been a couple of months ago, and it wasn't too long before that he would have woken her just to spite her, but he feels himself softening towards her in a way he would despise if it wasn't mirrored in her attitude towards him. Perhaps they've grown tired of clashing all the time. Perhaps there's only so many times you can save someone's life without coming to care for them. Perhaps his desire to claim her doesn't begin and end with having her in his bed. 

It doesn't mean that there's no fighting anymore. Their arguments are as vicious and bitter as ever, but now they're interrupted by occasional, rare moments of tenderness that grow more frequent the longer their assignment goes on. A casual hand against the small of her back as he leads her through the crowd. The briefest hint of a shared smile. Her hand squeezing his after he pulled a blaster on a man insulting her. Her body curling against him in her sleep. Small moments that might have slipped by unnoticed if it had been anyone but them, two people who were used to trying to inflict as much damage on each other as they could without crossing the lines of Kang's rules.

"She's good for you," Tarin tells him one morning while Jean is busy in the labs. Then, slyly, she adds, "Your human," as if it's a qualification that was necessary for him to understand what she was referring to.

He throws her a hard, irritated look, but doesn't object.

 

X.

They don't talk about what's going to happen when the assignment is over, and then it suddenly is, quicker than either of them expected, and they leave Tsorn in a rush. There's barely time to say their goodbyes to Tarin, who pulls Jean into a hug unaccustomed among Klingons and exchanges words with her that Tirax can't hear from where he stands. The women smile at each other. 

Tirax bids his sister farewell for the second time in only two years, but it's less terse and awkward than it used to be. He's glad to turn his back on Tsorn, but there are certain things he knows he will miss. Tarin's company is one of them.

He's so resigned to the notion of having to give up Jean as well when they're back on board the _Klolode II_ that he's genuinely startled to find her in his quarters the first night after they arrive, curled up on the seat in the corner and reading a mission report. He briefly wonders if Kang knows she's here – if Kang knows about them – but immediately discards the question. Of course Kang knows. He's probably known they were headed there all along, before either Jean or him even considered the possibility.

He sits on the bed and watches her read while he's taking off his boots. The silence stretches between them, oddly comfortable. It's minutes until he breaks it. "Kang offered me a promotion."

Jean looks up and frowns. "You're his second in command."

"Not here, planetside. A command at the station on Klairos. Basically, Kasoth's old job." His mouth twitches. "I assume you remember him?" 

The sour expression on her face lets him know that yes, she does indeed remember Kasoth. "Congratulations," she says cautiously. "Though I'm not sure if it's not more of a punishment than a promotion. Klairos is an awful place."

"It's certainly better than Tsorn," he reminds her. Anything is better than Tsorn, at this point, and he can think of worse places to live than Klairos. "It's not that bad. I remember how you basically adopted that girl you saved."

A small smile tugs at the corners of her mouth at the memory. "Tywa. True, she was a highlight on an otherwise dreadful assignment. Though I admit that my impressions of the planet as a whole may have been colored by the fact that Kasoth and you did everything to sabotage me while I was there. And then I was almost eaten by some fire-spitting beast."

It's more her dry tone than what she's saying that startles a laugh out of Tirax. He remembers that day, when Jean and the guard didn't come back, the cold dread settling in his stomach when he realized that Kang would take Tirax's life if Jean died out there, the giddy relief he felt when they found her alive and how he barely managed to cover it up with a veneer of anger. He has lots of memories of Jean on Klairos – her fighting with the natives and insisting on riding without a proper back-litter and throwing a dagger at him, putting herself and his life in danger time and time again. None of them are good memories. 

So it doesn't make sense when he opens his mouth and, without planning to ask anything like this, the thing that comes out is, "Come with me." As if she hadn't just told him how much she hated Klairos. He realizes belatedly that the entire conversation, starting from him telling her about the promotion, had been a prolonged way of asking her, even if he hadn't realized it.

But maybe Jean has, maybe it's a secret human talent to figure out intent when even the other party isn't aware of it, because she doesn't seem in the least bit startled or confused. She barely even looks up from the tablet and there's no hesitance in her voice, no hint that she's anything less than sure when she says, "Okay."

Tirax watches her as her fingers restlessly move over the tablet, her face lit up by the reflection of the screen. "Good," he says quietly, firmly, and it holds the weight of a promise.

 

XI.

Klairos is every bit as coarse and unfriendly as Tsorn, but the animosity feels less personal, more all-encompassing. Jean finds the Klairosian culture offensive and unpleasant, while Tirax is more concerned with the lack of acceptance he encounters as the freshly arrived Commander. Respect is hard won, especially for a man with a human woman at his side. 

It takes time and effort and more patience than Tirax is used to exhibiting. He often longs for a genuine physical fight rather than this constant struggle to be respected as a leader, longs to pick up a sword and a dagger and make someone bleed. More than once, he picks an argument with Jean instead, pointless and harsh, but when she responds in kind he knows it's partially because she feels as frustrated as he is.

He cuts the throat of the first man who attempts to stage an uprising and leaves him to bleed out on the stair of the headquarters where the man came at him. He kills the second one too, and the third. There's no fourth attempt.

Jean begins to make friends with the servants – the kitchen maids, the women who do the laundry, the quiet low-caste workers who keep in the background and never speak up. Tirax scoffs at her early attempts, wishing she'd put half as much of an effort into not aggravating his officers. With time, though, he realizes that it's remarkable how easy Port Klairos is won over with the support of the people who are silently running it with their sweat and blood and hard work. 

A beautiful morning in spring, almost a year after their arrival, they take a pair of _krelks_ from the stables and ride out to the edge of the fields, where canyons mark the turn from cultivated land into wilderness. They share an amused look over the outrage of the groom who thinks it's not safe for Jean on a man's saddle. 

The sun is blasting down on them and the sky is a dark orange, turning the landscape into golden hues. Jean digs her heels into her _krelk_ 's flanks and then she's off, leaving him to catch up with her. She only stops when she reaches the abyss, dangerously close to the edge. 

Instinctively, he reaches out and pulls her backwards. Raising an eyebrow at his reaction, Jean laughs, teasing. "Are you worried about me, Commander?"

He decides that it's not the kind of question that needs an answer. 

There's a faint smile on his lips that he doesn't bother to hold back though, and when he looks across the lands – the vast dark canyons below them, the rich green fields with Jean's grain behind them – for the first time since he was sixteen and left Tsorn behind, he feels at home.

End.


End file.
